Anyone remember Ferrari Formula one on Atari st/ amiga? Forerunner to Geoff crammond but steering etc with a mouse. Proper hard I stared on games like WEC Le Mans, both the Nigel Mansell titles (yep there was one from the 80s first!)then like many microprose changed the game. Moved into consoles after that, saw that the playstation had a launch date f1 game and when it had the tv graphics on it and Murray walker, I was so in! Moved to ps2 and all through gran turismo, all the way to gt5. Stuck with f1 titles too but got nostalgic for the 80s cars. A random trawl in the internet showed up rfactor and the 1988 mod. Amazing. Now I could drive 80s cars but in a modern game environment. The mod scene I discovered beyond that series got me totally hooked and although I was racing on a MacBook running windows in bootcamp it still was awesome As soon as the rf2 news came about I was straight on it, and it's finally starting to pay off Oh and I def upgraded my rig lol
I started with Pole Position in the arcades Then Test Drive on the Commodore 64 and Geoff Crammonds Formula 1 on the Amiga Things really came alive when I got Indycar Racing 1 and 2 - and all the Nascar games on PC. I raced in the Indy Extended Circuit league (IEC) in the late 90's (anyone else here race in that league?) including texture editing of the Nascar tracks so we could have a greater range of circuits - my first foray into editing. In this league you raced offline aganist a AI named for all the other drivers in the league (with their paint jobs) and sent your saved file in to be collated and ranked. I also ran in The Pits Bull Run endurance events the same way Then every ISI sim since then SCGT, F1 Challenge etc. I've probably had every type of wheel along the way from the early Thrustmasters like the Nascar wheel (which I still have) through the G25, G27 and now a T500 with two rims (and soon a custom historics rim) All good times
It's over twenty years now since I started simracing... My first "simracing experience" (I think 1983 or so...) C64 REVS and REVS+. It was great F3 Simulator with Silverstone, Brands Hatch, Donington Park, Snetterton and Nurburgring. Then I played a lot some other C64 titles like Pole Position and few others, which titles I've forgotten now. When I finally got my Amiga on some point, Geoff Crammond's GP -series was heaven to me. I drove a lot full GP seasons and got some "multiplayer" action as well via serial cable (and two Amiga's). I also played every driving/racing titles what I got my hands on, like: Oh yes! Very hard to drive, very hard to setup the car proper way... Competing against AI was even more difficult... I think I have driven Crammond's GP2 more than any other racing titles in my "career". You could even "paint" your own skins to the car, which was exceptional back then. Also Stunt Car Racer got plenty of my freetime. We played a lot with this title "online" with my friends via serial cable. Anyone remember tracks like "Stepping Stones" or "Skijump"? Some point early 90's I got my first PC and Papyrus released their first title, "Indy 500". It was masochistic experience to drive full race with mouse, because game was so unforgiving if you want to be competitive. Then came Papy's Indycar series, which where first (partially) moddable platform. I paint lots of skins on those cars. Same time (I think it was '94) they released Nascar Racing 1 with similar "moddable" features, like Indycar 1 & 2. Of course Crammond's GP3 got my attention as well on those days. In 1998 Papy released first demo of Grand Prix Legends, which hit me like a sledgehammer. I played that day and night, trying to snip out last tenth's of seconds of laptime on historical Monza. I spent my salary to new 3D card and other PC hardware just because I wanted to run this sim good as possible... I didn't play this game online very much, even if there was plenty of online GPL racers here in Finland. One reason was that I wasn't as quick as I liked (against Greger Huttu, for example) and I didn't like dictatorship league admins (which where more than trigger-happy to slap newbie even slightest mistake) and elitist athmosphere without willing to help any "competitors" who might get some points from you on some race... I played a lot other Papy's Nascar series as well, but N2k3 with Sandbox - track editor got me seriously into track modding, basically ending my "racing career". I had lots of interest creating "racing platforms" to others, rater than racing myself. I did many of track on n2k3 my own and with my Swedish friend. Some of you might seen tracks like "Bahrain", "Shanghai HR" and "Road America HR", which I still keep one of my masterpieces. Road America took over 8 months to build and it didn't lose too much iRacing's first version of that track. That was great achievement without any fancy point cloud data and virtually no other reference material either. Soon I got bored limitations of track building with n2k3 and started to seek more suitable platform for my needs. In 2005 released rFactor was modders dream. Fully open platform with good documentation and greatly helping developers made me abandon n2k3 very quicky. Learning curve was huge. I couldn't compare it anything what I have done before with tracks. I started from zero, learning 3ds max basics, slowly and painfully modelled (mostly with trial-and-error method) my first rF release Botniaring. It took even longer than Road America, but I was so happy to get it released in some point of 2006. Since then I have worked (and sometimes raced) only ISI's platform. Nowdays, I work with rF1 and rF2. Some of those tracks is released for public, but most of them are more or less private for certain reasons. I race online rarely nowdays because lack of freetime and other responsibilities. This has been fun ride and I'm looking forward upcoming years of simracing. Cheers!
Well, here we go then... I`ll keep it short. Started on the Atari (loved space invaders... still play it sometimes but now on the pc) Then onto the Playstation, ahh... Lara... Some Toca, F1 97, F1 2000 etc but still only had a game pad (Wingman Rumblepad... loved it at the time ) Then got a pc and found GPL... still had the game pad so eventually got myself a wheel, a G25 and bang!!! Dear old GPL just came ALIVE!!! I still love GPL but since rf2 came along I have to admit I`ve not driven it much. Then F1 C, GTR2, rfactor and now rf2. Also have AC but not got that into it yet... I`ll keep trying it though. Love my gaming and sim racing, this thread has brought back some good old memories.
Than you should know the best ever gamepad for driving that time. I still own tree of them, some nostalgia and a piece of memorabilia. I loved to ride with it because it has improved the driving experience drastically. View attachment 12694
Really ? Ok i see you startet on the PS2 where it wasn't working with as example GT anymore. One of the best driving tools for that time as a pad. If i'm not mistaken, it already was possible to twist it 360° , and it was the very first time i felt i would controle the car more natural than with a standard pad. We where very fast with this and each driving game was a new experience but at the beginning it was not easy to adapt since it does not really simulated steer as usual with a steering wheel but logically it had a better resolution as a pad by the analog axis it had. The throttle and brake were also analog axis for better modulation. It was a dream and a very good alternative to steering wheels, which where scrap to that time.
LOL, it's odd how we refer to the length of our term playing this game as a career! We are playing a game we'll never get paid for that dominates our free time, annoys our wives and embarrasses our kids- this is our career! I do it too and sometimes when someone asks me how long I have played sims, I'll be like "I started my ca... err playing in 2005". It'd seem odd if I said "I started my sim racing career Feb 26, 2005 doing online rallies with RBR then moved on to proper racing sims with rF1 in July 2006 because I sucked at the tarmac rallies". And when they see my racing setup, they usually kind of look at me... they don't get it. Hell I don't get it and it's my career!
I won't bore you with my story, just the route I took to arrive at rF2 today. Stunt Car Racer --> Grand Prix --> Indycar --> Indycar 2 --> Grand Prix 2 --> GPL --> GPL --> GPL --> I played GPL too much > Race07 > rFactor 2 Of course, I still bought rFactor, GTR, GTR 2, GTL, Grand Prix 3, LFS, Nascar, Grand Prix Circus, Final Lap, Pole Position, Lotus Challenge, Super Cars, Gran Turismo, Forza, Assetto Corsa, Super Mario Kart and all manner of other racing games, but it's the ones from the list above this sentence that I played week in week out. It's amazing that even from those blocky graphics I can tell that the corner is Mirabeau. Great game.
Beautiful comment mate, thank you so much. Yeah that's my hysterical singing you were subjected to. Glad you like it though.
You know there are gamer professions in Asia? They get paid to what we do. Well, not simracing maybe... If this could somehow turn into true championships being held online with livestreaming and stuff. As dumb as it may sound, you might get sponsored by somebody and you put their name on your car in game. It's all marketing. But first, we need to get the attention towards rFactors advantages over other sims to as many people as we can reach. This is half the reason why I make all these videos. The other half is because I love this stuff.
I have not planned anything yet, but would you mind if I might use one of your songs in my videos someday?
About 5 or 6 years ago, my dad bought a PS3 to play Blu-ray movies and asked me to pick out some games for my son to play when he visited. Having recently spent many hours playing Wave Race: Blue Storm on my son’s GameCube, I asked the local GameStop guys if there were any good racing games for the PS3. The immediate and unanimous answer was Grid and, though my son ended up not being that interested, I played that game so much my dad ended up giving me the PS3. That led to Dirt, Dirt 2 and Gran Turismo 5 which lead to Richard Burns Rally, rFactor 1, NetKar Pro, Game Stock Car, several SimBin titles, rFactor 2 and Assetto Corsa. Edit - Forgot LFS and pCars
I am surprised nobody has mentioned the awesome sim racer that is GTA:IV, I raced on there with a strong community for over a year! From there I went to the awkwardly designed disappointment that was Gran Turismo 5, bought a wheel, ditched GT5 for WRC2 which was the most fast paced, challenging and satisfying racing game I have ever played on. Then bought a graphics card, tried rF1, was pretty awkward to set up compared to what I was used to, but the more challenging physics and realism (starting from pit lane etc.) sold me. Bought rF2 straight away and spent weeks just trying to finish a lap in the FR3.5 (before tyre heat was implemented), raced online in the meganes ever since.
Of course you can, and if you want something original for a video I can do that too. Instrumental or with vocals. Tell me what kind of vibe you're looking for, and I'll do my best. PM me someday and we could brainstorm ideas for a cool video perhaps. I'm game, for sure. I'm getting a microKorg XL one of these days, so music will pour out very soon. That goes for anyone who makes rF2 videos btw! I'd like to contribute somehow, and since music is my thing, just say the word.
My first serious racing sim was Formula One Grand Prix (Commodore Amiga of big brother) my favorites tracks were Monza and Hockenheimring. Next games were more arcade, Daytona USA & Sega Rally Championship on Sega Saturn, with the wheel ! I came back to Grand Prix 2, did some full lenght races(i even printed the results ), that's the last time i raced in open wheels. Then i bought a Playstation for GT2, played it a lot, in the end, i could buy the Escudo in less than 2 hours starting from zero. Back again to PC, interested in the Nordschleife, i bought GTR and a Logitech DFP, i used the F1 to learn the track ! My favorites track on GTR1 and 2 were the nords (aka The Mother/Zurich) and Le Mans, with the Saleen S7R. There's still some PBs at GTRrank (nickname: asleep) http://www.schuerkamp.de/zope/gtrank/viewTopTenLaptimes http://gtr2.gplrank.info/viewTopTenLaptimes After a 2 years pause, i finally bought Rf1 and a G25.
I read about how crappy it was on the iracing forums so I thought it was worth a try and now it's my fave racing sim.
